An optical disk such as a DVD is widely used as a medium in the rental video business. The adhesion of contamination such as dust or fingerprints on the readout surface deteriorates the appearance of the rented disks as well as causes readout problems deriving from the fundamental system of reading out stored information by the use of light. Therefore, frequent cleaning of optical disks is required at a video rental store or similar facility. However, there has been no conventional mechanical device for the aforementioned simple cleaning. Instead, a repairing device to remove scratches on the readout surface of a disk by polishing the disk is utilized, or a manual operation including spraying a cleansing liquid and then wiping the liquid with a cloth is carried out.
Patent Document 1 entitled “disk washing device” discloses a disk cleaning device for cleaning polished disks in a process of manufacturing a magnetic disk, an optical disk or other storage media. On the other hand, Patent Document 2 entitled “optical disk medium cleaning mechanism” discloses a cleaning mechanism for cleaning an optical disk medium by using a cleaning liquid. Further, Patent Document 3 entitled “washing device for optical disk and dust absorptive cloth” discloses a cleaning device which automatically cleanses the information recording surface of an optical disk, and a cartridge-type dust absorbing cloth used in the cleaning machine.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. H11-90358
Patent Document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. H5-101604
Patent Document 3: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. H8-180643